No Bold Strategy for PH, No Real Reform for Malaysia

The long-awaited change in government in Malaysia is now a fact, but the question to ask now is, how committed to across-the-board reforms can the new ruling coalition be, led as it is by a 93-year-old prime minister who is scheduled to leave within two years, and given the internal distrust that is natural to expect from a government made up of four parties, one of which is three years old only, and another just two years old.

More to the point, are the disparate
leaders in Pakatan Rakyat able to imagine the New Malaysia well enough to
believe in realising it, and do they possess enough political and strategic
skills and cohesion to force the pace and stay the course?

Although bringing down the Barisan Nasional
was practically not imaginable until it actually did happen, reforming Malaysia
into an economically vibrant and politically solid nation is showing itself to
require a cohesion in policy making and a boldness in strategy which appears to
have already pushed the Pakatan Rakyat to its limits.

To provide a fair analysis of how the
Pakatan Rakyat can be expected to fare in coming months, one has to acknowledge
that the time for reforms in Malaysia was long delayed by the effective
measures in ethno-populism, systemic manipulations and draconian intimidations
undertaken by the long-serving Barisan Nasional government.

Change Delayed for Too Long?

The crucial question now is, has the
ailment of rampant identity politics infected the marrow of the nation? Was the
patient able to get into the emergency room for surgery only after the cancer
had reached a critical stage?

As with all critical diseases, the cure
relies both on the potency of the medication—meaning the efficacy of the new
government—and the condition of the body’s immune system, i.e. the strength of the
belief that Malaysian society still has in the viability of its cultural
pluralism.

Indeed, it is only when its leaders and its
people feel that the country is still meant for bigger things that a New
Malaysia can be perceived in practical and strategically effective terms.
Lacking that, the new government will find it hard to move beyond the slogans
and changes developed over the last few elections to defeat the BN, all expressed
in the Pakatan election manifesto for effect.

Without a properly developed process of
reform, knee-jerk statements and quasi-policies noteworthy more for their ad
hoc nature than for being integrated are to be expected from a government
searching for direction. These measures will fail to inspire and will prove
easy for the conservatives to counteract. The ICERD fiasco comes to mind.

A reform movement is nothing if it is not
able to inspire its followers.

It is in this context that Pakatan
strategist Liew Chin Tong, who is also the deputy minister of defence, has
cried out for a national narrative to be properly formulated and concertedly proliferated.
Given that the election was won to a significant extent on socio-economic
dissatisfaction among voters, such a narrative will need to build on the
struggle against the ample gaps in income, in IT, in education and in
entrepreneurial spirit existing in the country today, after 60 years of
ethnocentric policy making.

Let Vision 2020 Meet Reformasi

With Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri
Anwar Ibrahim leading Pakatan Rakyat, one would think that their ministries
would have enough brain power and strategic sense to work together to merge
ideas from Vision 2020 (functional between 1991 and 1998, Malaysia’s economic
golden age) with those expressed so excellently by the Reformasi Movement
(effective in 1998-2018 as the backbone of the country’s re-democratisation
process), to create such a narrative.

Six decades of BN rule fuelled by a
popularly embraced agenda of identity politics and ethnic divide-and-rule
“nation building” has left scars that only a bold and insightful micro-surgeon
can mend. For the Pakatan government to be that surgeon, it needs to show
humility and openness even as it asks that the public show it patience and
understanding.

There is much public goodwill for the new
government to draw upon as yet, but public goodwill unmatched by inspiring
leadership (or worse, met by petty and confusing infighting within the ruling
coalition) soon turns into public bewilderment and disappointment. And
disappointment at a time when there is no viable alternative to turn to leads
to despair, cynicism and anger on a grand scale.

Recognizing key areas where reforms must
first take place, and putting all energy and resource into these chosen
priorities are basic to any agenda for real societal and institutional change.
Much resistance will come from within the ranks of the Pakatan, either for fear
of losing votes or for lack of the imagination needed to understand the
comprehensive nature of societal change.

For each of the four Pakatan parties,
putting the most promising and most competent persons in the right positions appears
already compromised by the wish to follow party hierarchies and to reward those
who had fought hardest or longest against the old regime. Winning the war is of
course not the same thing as winning the peace, and a good general may make a
bad minister.

The Sorry Past naturally also lives within
the Pakatan, thriving as long as the eagerness for reform is stymied by a lack
of a sanctioned list of priorities—a national narrative, in effect—to follow.

If Pakatan Rakyat should fail in reforming
the nation, then one has to draw the conclusion that the time for reform was
delayed too long, and the damage done had gone too deep to be remedied by a
coalition government made up of the fragmented parts that the divide-and-rule
politics of 60 years of BN created, and led by equally disjointed leaders.
Should that be the sad outcome, then disaster awaits the country.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About Ooi Kee Beng

Dr OOI KEE BENG is the Executive Director of Penang Institute (George Town, Penang, Malaysia). He was born and raised in Penang, and was the Deputy Director of ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, ISEAS). He is the founder-editor of the Penang Monthly (published by Penang Institute), ISEAS Perspective (published by ISEAS) and ISSUES (published by Penang Institute). He is also editor of Trends in Southeast Asia, and a columnist for The Edge, Malaysia.